Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial

This week, we visited the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. This is the memorial built to commemorate those killed when Flight 77, hijacked by muslim terrorists, crashed into the Pentagon, killing all on board and many in the building.

It's a public memorial, just off of the South parking lot. Most visitors will have to park at the Pentagon City Mall and walk over or be dropped off unless they have a handicapped placard enabling them to use one of the six handicapped parking spots set aside for memorial visitors. There is no parking for anyone else on the Pentagon reservation.

At the entrance to the memorial is a marker listing the names of all those killed.

I've put those names at the end of this post.

The memorial is a two-acre plaza filled with benches, one for each person killed here on 9/11.

Then benches are in rows, and the rows are set up in order of the birth year of the person or persons killed.

The first row has one bench, that of Dana Falkenberg. She was three years old when she died on that plane.

Her family members, also killed, are listed in the water at the base of her bench; her name is on theirs as well, and theirs can be found further into the memorial, according to the year in which they were born.

The wall of the Pentagon, since repaired, where the plane struck.

Some of the benches. 184 of them in all.

The orientation of the bench depends on where the person was that day. Those oriented towards the Pentagon were on the aircraft. Those oriented away from the Pentagon were in the building.

To the west, the Air Force Memorial can be seen.

Another view of the new wall.

The memorial is a somber place, yet peaceful.

Jets still fly overhead on their way into Reagan National. Life goes on and we don't change for cowardly terrorists.

Come dusk, the benches are all illuminated by lights in the water below.

These lights and a few small ones recessed around the memorial are the only illumination at night, and they really give the monument a serene feeling.

The Pentagon is lit up too, both inside and out. because the business of America's defense never stops.

The dead, both from the plane and the Pentagon. Listed alphabetically, the year that they were born is given first. Their benches can be found by finding the row for that year.